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Tocharian, also spelled Tokharian ( or ), is an extinct branch of the Indo-European language family, known from manuscripts dating from the 6th to the 8th century AD found in oasis cities on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin (now part of Xinjiang in northwest China). The discovery of these languages in the early 20th century contradicted the formerly prevalent idea of an east–west division of Indo-European language family on the centum–satem isogloss, and contributed to re-invigorated study of the family. The term "Tocharian", based on an identification with the Bactrian ''Tokharoi'' of classical sources, is now generally considered a misnomer, but has become customary. The documents record two closely related languages, called Tocharian A ("East Tocharian", ''Agnean'' or ''Turfanian'') and Tocharian B ("West Tocharian" or ''Kuchean''). The subject matter of the texts suggests that Tocharian A was more archaic and used as a Buddhist liturgical language, while Tocharian B was more actively spoken in the entire area from Turfan in the east to Tumshuq in the west. A body of loanwords and names found in Prakrit documents have been dubbed Tocharian C (''Kroränian''). These languages became extinct after Turkic Uyghur tribes expanded into the Tarim Basin in the 9th century AD during the Islamicisation and Turkicisation of Xinjiang. ==Discovery and significance== The existence of the Tocharian languages and alphabet was not even suspected until archaeological exploration of the Tarim basin by Aurel Stein in the early 20th century brought to light fragments of manuscripts in an unknown language, dating from the 6th to 8th centuries AD.〔Deuel, Leo. 1970. ''Testaments of Time'', ch. XXI, pp. 425–455. Baltimore, Pelican Books. Orig. publ. Knopf, NY, 1965.〕 It soon became clear that these fragments were actually written in two distinct but related languages belonging to a hitherto unknown branch of Indo-European, now known as Tocharian: *Tocharian A (Agnean or East Tocharian; natively ''ārśi'') of Qarašähär (ancient ''Agni'', Chinese ''Yanqi'') and Turpan (ancient Turfan and Xočo); and *Tocharian B (Kuchean or West Tocharian) of Kucha and Tocharian A sites. Prakrit documents from 3rd-century Krorän on the southeast edge of the Tarim Basin contain loanwords and names that appear to come from another variety of Tocharian, dubbed Tocharian C. The discovery of Tocharian upset some theories about the relations of Indo-European languages and revitalized their study. In the 19th century, it was thought that the division between Centum and Satem languages was a simple west–east division, with Centum languages in the west. This theory was undermined in the early 20th century by the discovery of Hittite, a Centum language in a relatively eastern location, and Tocharian, the easternmost branch but nonetheless of the Centum type. The result was a new hypothesis, following the "wave" theory of Johannes Schmidt, suggesting that the Satem isogloss represents a linguistic innovation in the central part of the Proto-Indo-European home range, while the Centum languages along the eastern and western peripheries did not undergo that change. Tocharian probably died out after 840 when the Uyghurs, expelled from Mongolia by the Kyrgyz, moved into the Tarim Basin.〔 This theory is supported by the discovery of translations of Tocharian texts into Uyghur. During Uyghur rule, the peoples mixed with the Uyghurs to produce much of the modern population of what is now Xinjiang. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tocharian languages」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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